Shakespeare's Landlord: a Lily Bard mystery by Charlaine Harris

A re-read The original is here . Still recommended, but carries a trigger warning for rape and assault (in Lily's backstory).

The Devil's Revolver by V. S. McGrathHettie Alabama is a seventeen-year-old girl growing up on a ranch in Montana with her Mother, Grace, her father, John ( Read more... )

Arsenic and Old Books: a cat in the stacks mystery by Miranda James

When last I wrote about the "Cat in the Stacks" mysteries ( here) I said that the series was basically over because the whole cast except for the cat was going off to France (for reasons I have forgotten). Well, I guess they're back ( Read more... )

Kitty Rocks the House by Carrie Vaughn

So last time, I said I wanted to see more of Kitty and Ben's pack; the domesticity of lycanthropy, as it were. We get some of that here, as our heroes return from the wars London and find a lone wolf in their territory, intending to challenge them for the leadership of the pack. They deal with it in a very ( Read more... )

Die Buying: a mall cop mystery by Laura DiSilverioFormer military cop Emma-Joy "EJ" Harris earned an honourable discharge when an IED injures her leg. Rejected by the civilian police forces she applied to, and unable to live with her Hollywood rich family, she winds up moving to Veronville (state unknown; it's probably mentioned in the text ( Read more... )

Wicked City by Ace Atkins

Atkins is the writer selected by the estate of the late Robert B. Parker to continue the Spenser series. IMHO, so far he's done okay. Not great, but Parker himself didn't do great all the time, so I'd say good enough. Anyway, I thought I'd check out his own novels.

Wicked City is the "based on true life" story of ( Read more... )

Master of the House Of Darts: Obsidian and Blood Vol. III by Aliette deBodardOne of the disadvantages of reading and writing about so many books is that it's sometimes hard to find the entries when you need them. I'm fairly sure that I've written about at least the first book of this series, but I can't find where ( Read more... )

Where Shadows Dance: a Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C. S. Harris

Sequel to the other Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries.St. Cyr's friend Paul Gibson is a doctor and, like all doctors of the era (1812) he has to get sample bodies to dissect, and the supply of those is limited. So, he turns to body-snatchers (the kind that take bodies out of graveyards, ( Read more... )

Unnatural History by Jonathan Green

The first book in the series containing Leviathan Rising, this story introduces us to Ulysses Quicksilver (not yet referred to with the sobriquet, "Hero of the Empire!"), a British agent who has risked his life for the Empire and, as of the start of the book, apparently lost. That is, he was last heard of when ( Read more... )

An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris

In this latest addition to the series, Harper and her step-brother Tolliver (!) (he spends much time this story reminding people that he isn't actually her brother) travel to South Carolina, to Knott County, whose sheriff, Sandra Rockwell, is desperate. Young teenage boys, six of them now, have been vanishing ( Read more... )

The City & The City by China Mieville

This is a hard book to describe, which is to say, it's a China Mieville book.

This time, the man who brought us New Crobuzon brings us something that, at first glance, looks a lot more normal. For starters, rather than being set in some kind of steampunk otherworld, it's set in Europe ( Read more... )